Introduction
I recently read David Epstein’s book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. The book focuses on how to cultivate broad thinking strategies to learn effectively. Epstein’s focus is on individuals. As I made my way through the book, I saw that the points made in this book apply equally well to teams.
I work with and advise early stage technology startups. I learnt a lot while reading “Range”. In this post, I explore how the lessons from “Range” can benefit technology startups or teams looking to launch a new product.
Thriving in Wicked Environments
Epstein introduces the concept of Kind and Wicked environments. A chessboard is a kind environment: the rules are clear, and actions are deterministic. Strategies that work in one situation should work well in similar cases. However, in the real world there are feedback loops and second-order consequences that are difficult to predict. It is a rapidly changing Wicked environment. Strategies that worked well in the past can stop working due to changes to the external environment or the market’s reaction to your previous actions.
We see this pattern repeatedly in the world of startups. Ideas that seem destined for success fail because they attempt to solve a problem that is no longer important or serve a market that no longer exists.
To thrive in a Wicked environment, a team may need to take conceptual knowledge from one problem domain and apply it to an entirely new one. The ability to think broadly and to be able to deploy flexible solutions to complex problems could be the difference between a successful product launch and complete failure.
Creating Innovative Products Through Analogical Thinking
Epstein describes Analogical Thinking as —
“The practice of recognizing conceptual similarities in multiple domains or scenarios that may seem to have little in common on the surface.”
Barriers to entry in the information economy are low. While anyone can launch a software product or service, successful companies frequently bring together ideas from different fields to build a compelling product.
Uber brought together logistics, mapping, mobile experiences, and access to an entirely new labor market to create a transformational service. Snowflake’s recent success is another example of a business built on the convergence of industry and technology trends. They successfully executed a simple, in hindsight, idea — cloud-only data warehouses.
Building a Successful Team
In Superforecasting, Philip Tetlock quotes the Greek poet Archilochus: “the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Hedgehogs are specialists — they love to focus on one problem and usually work within their specialty’s confines. Foxes tend to work across various disciplines and work under ambiguity and contradictory conditions.
Epstein cites Tetlock’s research in forecasting and shows that in the face of uncertainty, individual breadth is critical. Similarly, teams that were open-minded and embraced a wide range of experience outperformed teams of narrow specialists.
Early-stage teams need to be open-minded and willing to change their assumptions and pivot when circumstances demand it. As a company matures, it may become useful to include specialists to refine a product and idea. However, having too many specialists at an early stage could lead to tunnel vision.
Choosing a Technology Stack
Gunpei Yokoi was a legendary video game designer at Nintendo. He designed the Game Boy. In Range, Epstein talks about Yokoi’s concept of “Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology.”
The heart of his philosophy was putting cheap, simple technology to use in ways no one else considered. If he could not think more deeply about new technologies, he decided, he would think more broadly about old ones.
You can still see this philosophy in play at Nintendo today.
This lesson is of particular importance for startups with technical founders. It is tempting to be on the cutting edge of technology. But few customers will pay to use a product because it uses a fashionable technology stack. The ability of the company to solve the customer’s problem is way more important.
It may be more productive and faster to build a product using battle-tested, well-understood technology that is quickly and cheaply available. Just like Nintendo, a startup must cultivate a relentless focus on delighting the customer. Technology choices should come second.
Deploying Data Carefully
Startups are encouraged to be data-driven. They optimize for metrics such as customer behavior metrics, sales funnels, infrastructure costs, etc. The danger for the startup here is relying too much on data to make decisions without considering the market or whether the data is relevant to the vision of the company. As Epstein says — the critical question to ask is:
‘Is this the data that we want to make the decision we need to make?’
A dogmatic data-driven approach may lead to doing the same thing in response to the same challenges over and over until the behavior becomes so automatic that it is no longer recognized as a situation-specific tool.
An over-reliance on data can lead to actions that may improve the metrics the team relies on, but may not help the company in the long run to achieve their strategic objectives.
Making the most of External Advisors
Formal or informal advisors can play a critical role to the founding team in a startup. The most effective advisors are outsiders who may be removed from the company’s problem but may help reframe the problem that unlocks the solution.
Epstein notes —
‘A key to creative problem solving is tapping outsiders who use different approaches so that the “home field” for the problem does not end up constraining the solution.’
An outside advisor may offer solutions to a problem the founding team may not even consider because they are too close to the problem.
Knowing when to Give Up
Thirty percent of startups will go under within two years. Fifty percent will fail within five. Running out of money is the most common reason for failure. If a startup keeps trying to execute the same plan despite not gaining traction, it will fail.
Startup culture venerates hard work and not giving up. But here, Epstein provides an essential quote from Seth Godin:
‘We fail when we stick with tasks we don’t have the guts to quit.’
The best, most thought-through plan may fail when it comes up against external conditions — like a global pandemic. Persevering through difficulty can be a competitive advantage, but knowing when to quit can also be a significant strategic advantage. As a startup, it is vital to define and understand the conditions in which it is clear that Plan A has failed, and it is time to try something else.
Conclusion
Building and running a startup is exciting, scary, and can be extremely challenging. It rewards being able to adapt to complex, changing environments. It is vital to pick the right problem to solve, identify the correct tools to solve the problem, and build a team that learns how to make the most of diverse skill sets. Leveraging data and being metric driven can help guide, but must not constrain decision making. Leaning on external advisors and investors is essential to help keep the team grounded and provide different perspectives to solve tricky problems.
Finally, success is not just about persevering through difficult times; it also involves knowing when to quit and when to pivot. A battle may be won simply by disengaging at the right time.
Range is a fantastic book and one that I strongly recommend. The lessons in the book are important not just for individuals but also for teams.
